In Which I'm Jealous & Spiteful

If you're going to the Reason Rally today, I just want you to know: I hate you.

Have fun.

Good On You, Stony Brook

Congratulations, Stony Brook University. Good job on discouraging preferential treatment to specific religions. Obviously, Rush Limbaugh doesn't like it, but, well, it's Rush Limbaugh. I don't think there's much of anything that he actually does like; the man's show is a putrid fountain of hatred and idiocy.

But that's beside the point. In February, Stony Brook made some changes to their calendar for 2012, which will presumably apply to later years as well, provided no one has a big enough tantrum first. Religious holidays will no longer be holidays from classes – specifically, Christian and Jewish holidays won't, since no other religion's holidays were recognized by the school calendar.

A-Week – Are You Shouting, Or Are You Just There?

It's that time of year again... It's A-Week!

Last year, I didn't participate. I had my reasons. But this year, I'm ramping it up with an 'A' as my profile pic! Nothing as gauche as last year's scarlet A, though. This year, it's a nice, sedate blue.

Really, though, I have to wonder... Am I making a difference?

SSA Conference!

Just a short post, as I'm leaving soonish and still need to pack (curse you, procrastination!), but I'm heading off to the Secular Student Alliance's annual conference in Columbus, Ohio today, and I am excited!

As far as what I hope to get out of this, I'd really like to learn more about how to make a group female-friendly... but not in a way that's just targeting females. I'd also like to hear any opinions on making to whole "ladies' issues" engaging to guys without resorting to "it might get you laid." Quite frankly, I'm of the opinion that most problems are "human issues," rather than men's or women's specifically, but there I don't run into a whole lot of agreement on this.

To put it frankly, how the hell do I get a (mostly male) group to talk about something like the proposed requirement for health insurance providers to provide birth control free of charge without having them think that the only reason it's important is because they're less likely to knock someone up if it's put into effect?

Also, how to run better events. How to strike the right balance between what some people want and what others disagree with. How to forge good relations with faith-based groups. How to figure out whether something's a rumor or not, and how to keep it from spreading while we find out (more on this later). And whether anyone knows if Rock Beyond Belief is actually going to happen (seriously, I want to go)!

All that said, I'm mostly excited to meet everyone else there. I mean, c'mon, it's a conference which, if I extrapolate based on previous experiences with the Freethinkers, will be full of awesome people. Also, the awesome speaker list.

And I can't lie; I really just want to hug PZ Myers.... he just looks so huggable!

Giles County's Unconstitutional Ten Commandments Decision

I know everyone thought I'd been raptured, since I've been terribly neglectful of this blog for the last month, but I promise, I'm still here, and still in Blacksburg, even.

In fact, I'm still meeting up with the Freethinkers, and we are doing epic things this summer! Yesterday's epic adventure was our trip out to the Giles County School Board Meeting to show our support for keeping the “historical documents” display – the one that includes the Ten Commandments – out of public schools. This has apparently been an issue since at least 2004, and probably much longer.

Just to be clear, in my personal opinion, the Ten Commandments has no place in a display of historical documents that were instrumental in the formation of American law. In fact, 70% of the Ten Commandments aren't addressed at all in American law codes. Last I checked, we were still allowed to disrespect whomever we pleased, have whatever deities or idols (or lack thereof!) we care to have (in whatever order we want), party all day on Sundays, swear however we like, covet anything we damn well want, and, in many states, have sex with anyone willing and of age and sound mind (at any rate, there's no federal law governing adultery); only murder, theft, and bearing false witness are illegal on a federal level. Beyond that, I think I can go out on a limb and say that most – if not all – legal codes have always and still do include admonishments against murder, theft, and lying to get other people in trouble and/or cover your own ass. There is no real evidence or support for the claim that the Ten Commandments are historically significant in the codification of United States law.

On a related note, I'd like to put forth that if they wanted to put up something really old that influenced United States legal tradition (and probably legal traditions in much of the modern world), they need look no further than the Code of Hammurabi. It is the oldest recorded legal code ever discovered, after all, and it even covers murder, theft, and false witness.

More Information

As more information comes to light, I would like to restate that Mr. Alex Huppert needs help and support, not judgment and condemnation. Free@VT has extended our support to his family and friends, should they need it, and we hope for the best for Mr. Huppert as he faces a difficult period in his life.

At present, it appears that Alex's behavior may have been due to his taking a drug that he believed to be Paxil -- for which he had a prescription -- but wasn't.

More information is available in this follow-up article in the Virginia Tech Collegiate Times.

Today's Events: the Awesome and the Terrifying

Today was National (or International, depending on who you ask) Ask an Atheist Day. I planned and ran the Free@VT-sponsored booth here at Virginia Tech, and as one of my fellow participants said, the day was "99% totally awesome open dialogue, and 1% horrible obscene worst-case-scenario."

First, the awesome stuff. While the day started off slowly, we had a definite increase in interest and traffic as the day went on. By noon, we had a pretty much constant group of students around the booth, and several atheists who hadn't known about Free@VT had dropped by to pick up a meeting schedule or sign up for our listserv (including a student in the Corps of Cadets, who was feeling a bit out outcast in the military setting and was excited to hear of an atheist-friendly group on campus!). Even more delightful was the number of people who were actually asking us questions.

We had a veritable flood of students from some of the on-campus Christian organizations, most notably from Campus Crusade for Christ. Both sides of the discussion -- and, surprised as I was, it was, in all cases, a discussion, not an argument -- were very polite, and genuinely interested in having an open dialogue. Questions ranged from wondering whether we celebrated Christmas, to where we got our morals, to our thoughts on the origin of life and the universe, to whether we believed if Jesus ever existed, and beyond.

Perhaps a measure of the respect we were treated with was due to the fact that many of our volunteers were grad students, but I don't really think that's what it was. At Virginia Tech, there seems to be a high expectation from everyone, not just from the establishment, that others be treated with respect until they've done something showing that they're not worthy of that. Hokies, as a whole, are a family, and while we may disagree on some things, we try our utmost to be, at least, civil.

As I said, however, there was that 1% of the day that was heinously awful.

The "Problem" of Gay Marriage

Just to be clear, I fully support the legalization of gay marriage.

Reposted from Hanlon's Razor

Is it Our Duty to Come Out as Atheists?

I'm sure many of you know it, but just to set the stage for my discussion of this topic, last week was 'A' Week. Atheists have been encouraged to set their Facebook (and other social profile, I suppose) picture to the scarlet 'A' -- or, in a twist on the concept that I personally prefer, to take a picture of themselves smiling with a small sign saying that they are an atheist, and use that for their profile picture.

'A' Week is a strategy which I highly support.

'A' Week is an event in which I do not participate.

What gives?

Why We'll Never Reach Utopia

With all that is going on these days, from the protests in the Middle East to the bill passed by the House to pull funding from Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers to the resistance against prohibiting unions in Wisconsin (of course, the Social Problems course I'm taking now and the Morality & Justice course from last semester may have a bit to do with my thinking as well...), I really have to wonder what it would take for governments to actually do what I've always been told is their job: Protect the people of the nation through law and regulation.

The fact of the matter is, while this is a lovely utopian ideal, governments have never done this in a satisfactory manner. There is no government in the world that has ever been able to offer true equality of treatment. There has always been an unequal distribution of power, and those who possess that power are in no hurry to let go of any of it. Whether the imbalance is fiscal or political, it seems that the priority of equality and actually doing the job right has always taken a backseat to the priority of maintaining power.

But would it hurt to try to get it right on occasion?

Equal-Opportunity Sausage Fest

Alrighty. So last week, before I got swamped with all the things for which I needed to study, I attended my first Freethinkers at VT group meeting! I enjoyed it, but I can now sympathize with all the other lady-atheists out there: I was the only attendee standing in the way of the meeting being a full-on sausage fest.

As someone who has a plurality of male friends, this was only a little bit uncomfortable for me. Honestly, given that I hang out with an all-male-but-me group every Saturday night, and practice fencing with a mostly-male group, I would say that most of the discomfort was the general novel social situation nerves.

That said, I wish there were more fellow-females* who showed up to these things, because there are so many female-specific problems stemming from religion. Yes, as a society, we all pay the price for the widespread delusion that is religious thought, and guys have their own male-specific problems. But if only guys show up, it seems unlikely that the ladies' problems will ever be discussed. Come on, ladies, let's represent!

The Propriety of Evangelism

It's no secret that I don't approve of religion. It is a system of lies that people tell themselves and others about the world, and these lies obscure their view of reality. Much as I would like to see religion eradicated, though, I know that in a free society, this is not likely to ever happen. This is because private beliefs are not something to be policed, and beyond my disapproval of religion, I disapprove far more of forcing belief (or disbelief) on the unwilling.

It is when one's private beliefs start to spill out into one's public actions that religion becomes a cause for real concern. Many religions require their adherents to evangelize and spread their religion. Is this a violation of the rights of those they accost? In the United States, we have the right to freedom of religion. But do we have the right to freedom from religion?

I would submit that we do, and that evangelism is sometimes in violation of this right to freedom of and from religion.

Basically, to quote a sentiment that has already been seen all over the internet, religion is like a penis.

No Reason to Gather?

As an atheist student from a strongly Catholic family, I have been looking for an atheist/agnostic/humanist/Pastafarian/whatever group to join since I began attending school here at Virginia Tech. I recently found out about the Freethinkers at Virginia Tech Group, and plan on attending their meeting on February 8th.

In the long search for a group, however, I was surprised to find how many of my friends (atheist, agnostic, and religious) scoffed at the idea of a skeptical club. More than once, I asked people who I was sure would be interested in such a group if they'd heard of one on campus, only to hear that they thought the idea was ridiculous or unnecessary. People told me that atheists didn't need any groups, that since all that we shared was a lack of belief in something, such meet-ups would be silly. Why would people who didn't believe in something need a group session to talk about it?